It’s not truly winter until the yellow-bellied sapsucker shows up. Always around Christmas we begin to see her. She’s a constant visitor until mid-February or so.

She taps row after row of holes into the bark of the pear trees. She tends them constantly so that they don’t harden up, and then she sips at the tree sap. It doesn’t harm the tree, so far as I can tell.

This is Oskari. I have been working downstairs near the wood stove because it has been so cold, so he misses our days together in the (his) atelier. I went in to shoot some pictures of my works-in-progress and he participated. His expressions can be hard for strangers to read. I think it’s because he’s mostly black. This (above) is his coy face.

The project is a cardigan and he really likes it. He likes being close to things that are of me, things that I work on or things that I love. Can you tell? This is his lovey face.

Then Arfinn crash bombed the picture party. So this is Oskari’s resigned-to-being-put-out face. He is a good mommy to the kittens, really knows how to pin them down for a thorough bath, but he highly values his Oskari time.

I hope to finish the cardigan in a week or two, depending on my answer to the perennial knitter’s question – to pocket, or not to pocket. Also, the design still needs a name.

I finally ordered sock blockers in the mail, but they are not here yet, so I have one completed pair of socks that remains crumpled and unpresentable. But then I cast on for a new pair – another Nancy Bush pattern. It is a nicer gauge to work with (fingering weight yarn on 2.75mm needles), so the knitting is more pleasant.

Chelsea Morning was featured in a great post over on Book Riot (by Rachel a.k.a. bananasuit) that pairs up audiobooks with knitting projects. As an avid audiobook listener (seriously, I can’t even start writing about audiobooks, this would turn into a different blog), I’m keen to try out a few of her suggestions!

I donated our latest Bogolan funds to Women for Women International. It always feels good to complete this task. Here’s our tally so far: